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International SEO

The expression International SEO is often being misunderstood for geotargeting or marketing localization. Truth is, international SEO combines both of these with elements of local SEO. International SEO is the process of setting up your website and promoting it in the international environment (typically several markets at once) in order to gain visibility in different search engines or different country versions of the same search engine.

If you want to effectively approach individual markets, start working on your localization.

Geo-Targting

Geo-targeting is the process that helps you set up your website. The ultimate goal is for the website to be able to tell the search engines which part of your website targets which countries or customers speaking a specific language. It increases the relevancy of your website for local queries, however, it is not one of the ranking signals.

Example

You have a US company targeting users in the UK, Australia and Canada. These markets are so specific you decide to create separate country versions, all in English. The problem is, there will be some locally-specific data, but the majority of the content will be the same – duplicate. You must then set up your geo-targeting signals so that search engines know which mutation of your site targets which audience – and that there are not just duplicates.

Hofstede’s dimension of uncertainty avoidance refers to a society’s general tolerance of ambiguity or the unknown. This is reflected in the extent to which a given culture will utilize rules, societal norms and standardized procedures to reduce uncertainty with regard to future events, decisions or occurrences.

The Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) assigns numerical scores to quantify the level of uncertainty avoidance held by individuals in various countries. People in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance prefer to minimize uncertainty with careful planning and regulation as well as a reliance on tradition. Conversely, cultures with low uncertainty avoidance are more open to change […] Read more

During Christmas season each country has its own special way of celebrating. Americans are crazy about parades, Germans flood town squares to visit Christmas markets and the Japanese get a strange flair for fried chicken. But, when do stereotypes stop reflecting actual reality?

First things first. What the heck is Hreflang tag, otherwise known as the “link rel alternate” tag, anyway? The short answer is: it tells search engines the relation between different language/country versions, so the they can serve result to users searching in that language/country. If you want to dig more into the topic, Moz did quite a comprehensive post about it. However, we are here today not to give you a lecture on Hreflang 101 but to bust one popular myth: “Is it true that Hreflang ultimately solves all geo-targeting issues?” *Spoiler alert* It does not!

How is 2017 treating you so far? At GFluence we are sticking to our New Year’s resolution and bringing you new and exciting blog posts each week. We managed to cover everything from Geo-Targeting to CTA button analysis. To help you remember or to help you catch up with what you’ve missed, here is our top 4 pick from January’s blog posts:

Many articles have been written about the psychology behind Call to Action (CTA) buttons. Current research included everything from color analysis to the style of language comparisons of CTA buttons. However, fewer content is devoted to a direct language comparison across different nations and cultures.

At GFluence we are interested in international campaigns gone bad or at those which “hit the spot“. Through an in depth analysis of cultural factors influencing the success of global marketing strategies we love to show you what international SEO is really about. We took a detailed look at one Amazon, one […] Read more

Typical December search engine keywords include: “perfect Christmas gift”, “Christmas dinner” and let us not forget about “New year resolutions”. At GFluence we did it all and still managed to regularly publish articles on our blog to provide you with interesting SEO reads. In case you were too busy gift wrapping here is our pick of the top 4 articles posted on the GFluence blog in December:

What are the Advantages of Hiring an International SEO Specialist Instead of Hiring Multiple SEO Teams?

This is a classic SEO must-read, which neatly shows why it is much better to hire one […] Read more

Those not living in the Czech Republic might not be familiar with the local search engine Seznam. Launched in 1996, Seznam is the Czech digital Giant offering email services and running sister websites on real-estate, online maps, job listings and other social and ecommerce related content. It is the second most used search engine in the Czech Republic just after Google, covering 31% of all online queries.

Quite some time has passed, since Airbnb was calling itself a startup. Offering airbeds and competing with couchsurfer.com, while today it’s value is estimated at $30 billion.

The reasons behind Airbnb’s business jump are due to several intertwining factors. From co-creating the shared service economy, to utilizing Airbnb’s global marketing strategy and global SEO strategy to its fullest potential. A key player in the company’s expansion is certainly the spreading out of its services to all kinds-of property: private apartments, houses, manors, tree houses, boats and even castles.